" African leaders call for equity over minerals used for clean energy" 28 February 2024

A resolution for structural change that will promote equitable benefit-sharing from extraction, supported by a group of mainly African countries including Senegal, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Chad, was presented at the UN environmental assembly in Nairobi on Wednesday and called for the sustainable use of transitional minerals.

“This resolution is crucial for African countries, the environment and the future of our population,” said Jean Marie Bope, a delegate from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which supported the resolution. [...]

Africa holds substantial reserves of the critical minerals. More than a half of the world’s cobalt and manganese, and 92% of its platinum, are found on the continent. DRC produces two-thirds of the world’s cobalt, a mineral used to build electric-vehicle batteries. But despite its vast mineral wealth, it remains one of the world’s poorest countries. Child labour and rights abuses also remain widespread in the country’s mining sector. The demand presents an opportunity for mineral-rich African countries that remains untapped, say leaders. Many of the region’s countries have limited capacity to process these critical transitional materials domestically. The minerals are often exported in their raw state and refined elsewhere, often in China, which does the bulk of global minerals processing and production. [...] Environmental campaigners echoed calls for benefit sharing. While expressing support for the global shift towards low-carbon technologies, they said that the clean energy transition risks replicating existing inequalities across the African fossil fuel sector. The region exports roughly 75% of its crude oil, which is refined elsewhere and re-imported as petroleum products, according to the African Union. It exports 45% of its natural gas, which contributes only minimally to regional energy needs, even as 600 million Africans remain without access to electricity.